kuru
(ˈkʊruː)
[Native name.]
A progressive and fatal degenerative disease of the brain which is endemic in an area of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea and is characterized by ataxia and tremor.
| 1957 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 14 Nov. 974/1 The current report of our preliminary findings is based on the careful study of 114 cases of this new disease, which the local populace know by the name of ‘kuru’. 1958 Times 9 Jan. 10/1 It is estimated that about 1 per cent. of the population is affected with kuru. 1965 Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 10 Oct. 2 Outside the Fore region only the adjacent areas where inter-marriage has certainly occurred show cases of kuru. 1967 New Scientist 26 Jan. 190/2 A brain disease known as kuru..appeared about 45 years ago in a tribe of cannibals in New Guinea and is now the tribe's most common cause of death. 1971 Nature 30 Apr. 589/1 Kuru..has so far been transmitted from eleven different human patients to eighteen chimpanzees with incubation periods of 14–39 months after intracerebral inoculation. 1973 Sci. Amer. Jan. 126/3 The prototype of the slow virus [disease] is probably kuru, that remarkable affliction of the people of the South Fore River of New Guinea, apparently spread by ritual cannibalism of the brain tissue. |